Edited by Audacia Ray

Is Nude Modeling "Real" Work?

Posted at 2:21 PM Jun 30, 2008

This past week, Australian-based all-natural naked lady site AbbyWinters.com launched two new websites specifically designed to attract new models to their empire: Nude Travellers and I Hate Real Work. The sites are apparently aimed at the kinds of women Abby Winters believes to be their modeling population: travelers in need of a cash pick-me-up, and work-avoidant young women.

The young women who populate the webby pages of Abby Winters are are almost entirely part-time models who pose for the site for kicks and a little extra cash - and really there's nothing wrong with this. That's one of the beauties of the sex industry: you can dip into it whenever you need a little extra cash flow, but it doesn't have to be a full-time job. The work, especially when it involves getting told you're pretty and being given the opportunity to get your groove on with other fine young things, can be quite a treat. However, I take issue with the idea that nude modeling it isn't "real" work - sure, it can be a somewhat easy way to make money, but when you work as a nude model you are creating real content that will really exist online for the company to make money off of. It's not likely that Abby Winters would say it is not a "real business" so why paint the work this way?

For the inside scoop on what goes down at a photo shoot with the company, read model Chloe B's account Getting Naked Australian Style here on Naked City, in her monthly contribution to the Porn At Large column. Chloe obviously loves what she does, and I'm not saying that Abby Winters is bad and evil, but saying that nude modeling isn't "real work" is misleading.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: abby winters, abbywinters.com, chloe b, model, naked women, nude

Overruled! Online Doc About Lawrence v. Texas

Posted at 2:15 PM Jun 27, 2008

Lambda Legal has just released an online documentary about the Lawrence vs. Texas case that defeated sodomy laws in a Supreme Court decision in 2003. The film is just shy of 20 minutes long, and it has a lot of fascinating interviews and insight into the process behind taking the case to the Supreme Court.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: gay, homosexuality, lambda legal, lawrence v texas, legal issues, sodomy

Frameline Film Festival Begins Tonight in San Francisco

Posted at 4:01 PM Jun 19, 2008

The 25th Annual Frameline LGBT Film Festival starts tonight in San Francisco and runs through June 29th. Even if you can't make it to any of the screenings, the trailer above is damned entertaining.

Also: your humble editor has a film in the festival. The Bi Apple is my debut as a porn director and producer; it was released on DVD in February 2007 and is a feature length film that I've pared down into a 25 minute short for festival screenings. It's screening as part of the Bi Request program of bisexual films on Wednesday, June 25th.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: film, film festival, frameline, lgbtq, queer

Five Naked Models

Posted at 1:40 PM Jun 09, 2008

If there's one thing the internet does, it's beget more internet. Good and bad ideas get expanded and expounded upon, and when we're lucky, they become something that involves nudity.

The Five Naked Models YouTube page tells the story of their internet lineage simply: "Vlogbrothers begat FiveAwesomeGirls, FiveAwesomeGirls begat FiveAwesomeGuys
FiveAwesomeGuys begat FiveNakedModels." So now you know. Five Naked Models features a different naked model every day of the week - each does her vloggy thang and talks about the nitty gritty (mostly unglamorous, but totally enthralling) of making a living as a nude lady.

Bonus: This week's Daily Voyeurs will each feature a photo of one of the ladies of Five Naked Models.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: fine art, five naked models, naked women, nude

Sex Advice is Everywhere: Dear Prudence Gets Fetishy

Posted at 4:17 PM Jun 03, 2008

I am what you might call an obsessive reader of advice columns. I've been this way since my pre-teens when I made sure to read Ann Landers, which was syndicated in my hometown paper, every morning. Though of course I have a professional interest in sex advice, I love reading all kinds of advice - mostly because I'm nosy and I like to read about other people's problems.

The weekly "Dear Prudence" (tagline: Advice on Manners and Morals) which appears on Slate.com has been one of my weekly reads for the past few years. Though I was slightly skeptical when Emily Yoffe became the new Prudie, I've warmed to her. She's practical bordering on progressive, and she doesn't refer to herself in the third person as "Prudie" as much as her predecessor did.

This past week, I was somewhat taken aback to see the headlining question: He Wants to Be Pampered. Yes, I'm thoroughly immersed in sexuality on a daily basis, but it's still a little jolting to see the adult baby fetish addressed in a mainstream advice column. The woman who writes in says that no matter how much she tries to think otherwise, she feels totally revolted by her boyfriend's admission that he has a fetish for wearing diapers and being treated like a baby. Prudence is judicious but punny:

While there are some women who can explore the deep kinks in their partner's psyche (think of the stories about couples who stay together after the husband has undergone a sex change), you clearly are not one of them. I understand that the image of your boyfriend looking like Baby Huey is killing your libido, but remember that the man you love is not a different person; he's the same man who harbored these fantasies all along. And now that the diaper's out of the bag, you two simply can't pretend he's never mentioned his fixation. ...But since you say you can't imagine life without him, consider seeing a counselor together to at least make sure you don't come to a rash conclusion.

Nothing's wrong with a little acknowledgment that the whole adult baby thing is a little weird, and Yoffe does a good job of telling her reader that to feel squicked is ok, to cut the man out of her life without discussion is not. I love seeing this kind of infiltration of discussion about sexuality into mainstream media, it fills me with glee.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: adult baby, advice, dear prudence, diapers, fetish

Ladies of Night: Muses and Poets

Posted at 1:35 PM May 30, 2008

North Carolina based writer, poet and former stripper Jenni Russell has edited the summer issue of creative writing journal MiPOesias around a theme: The Oldest Profession. The 44-page magazine can be downloaded as a PDF or purchased as a hard copy through Amazon.

In her introduction to the issue, Jenni writes:

Opinions are like bellybuttons, almost everybody has one, and for this issue I chose pieces that went deeper than opinion-writing the questioned the meaning of the phrase "sex work" itself. And in the end, that general category "Sex work" is exploded and challenged by the writers' refusal to reduce human life to theories or catchphrases, and instead to capture the the universal experiences shared by all of us: love, growing up, honesty, rejection, curiosity, vulnerability, compassion, doubt, desire, loneliness, and beauty.

Jenni also has a poetry chapbook of her own on the way - she's taking advance orders for Strip, which will be shipping in August.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: creative writing, jenni russell, journal, magazine, poetry, sex work

Porn goes LOL

Posted at 1:52 PM May 21, 2008

Inspired, no doubt, by Fleshbot and their recent LOL Pron contest, Justin Treynor has launched I Can Has LOL Pron.

It was bound to happen at some point. It should be interesting to see if people jump on the bandwagon and make/submit LOL Prons to the site, or if the site gets dusty.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: internet humor, lol pron, lolspeak, meme, porn

Defend Our Porn vs Free Speech Coalition

Posted at 1:01 PM May 21, 2008

The adult industry serves as one big test case for that whole "obscenity" thing. There are plenty of people in the industry who have become champions of the First Amendment - Larry Flynt is essentially a household name these days, especially since he got a major hollywood movie about his story. And every year at the Adult Video News awards, someone gives a grandiose speech about free speech, and how everyone in the biz is fighting this important fight. While certainly there are people in porn who are passionate about free speech, the vast majority of people in the industry couldn't give a shit about it unless it jeopardizes their bottom line.

The Free Speech Coalition was founded in 1991 to stand up for the free speech rights of people in the adult industry. But the organization's relationship to the population it serves is a rocky one: they seem to do lots of fundraising drives and make plenty of promises, but many industry players are less than pleased with their delivery. People involved closely with the organization have also complained about it's lack of efficiency - and in fact, it's inability to do anything useful. Longtime porn maker and talker of shit Mike South has a category on his blog dedicated to the Free Speech Coalition - it goes back several years and the posts detail many a grievance with the organization.

When John "Buttman" Stagliano was brought up on obscenity charges a month ago, he didn't turn to the FSC. He created his own organization, Defend Our Porn, because the FSC didn't step up - and from the looks of it, he probably didn't want them to anyway.

Here's what Stagliano has to say, from his editorial in Buttman Magazine, which he reposted on Defend Our Porn:

I have been called by our country to defend the rights of those who dare to love their lives here on earth, and I so love my life, and my freedom. They are trying to take that precious freedom away from me, and from you.

It is fitting that this issue is the one where I renew my own artistic impressions of ass. I have the stills here from the three scenes of my new release Buttman‘s Beautiful Brazilian Ass. I have been away for awhile from making Buttman movies. The pictures in this magazine have been from my other directors at the Evil Empire. But I recently went to Brazil, to make a Buttman movie for the first time in 3 years, just before I was indicted by the feds. So as a tribute to all those who would take our ass art away I’m glad I can present what I think is my best work, my new stuff, on a journey back to what I love.

In this new chapter in the story of American porn, the battle isn't "just" The United States vs. John Stagliano, but also Defend Our Porn vs Free Speech Coalition. It'll be interesting to see who comes out on top.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: buttman, defend our porn, first amendment, free speech coalition, freedom of speech, john stagliano

Where Can I Find Women Who Like Porn? Why, At a Porn Convention!

Posted at 4:00 PM May 08, 2008

Asylum recently published a post detailing their investigation about women who like porn - the research took place this past January at the Adult Entertainment Expo, also known as the marker of a non-sex journalist's skills of persuasion. Every year, writers at hundreds of publications try to convince their editors to send them on an expense-paid trip to Las Vegas for a week of ogling porn stars. Those who succeed join adult industry workers and sex writers who actually complain about having to attend the expo - and by the end of the week, the civilians know why.

A writer from Asylum made the journey, and along the way, interviews and pictures were produced.

Obviously, most of the ladies attending a porn convention who aren't working are probably fans of porn. And in many of the photos Asylum took, it's a little hard to tell the porn star and the porn fan apart.

I think a control group is needed. How about asking the same porn questions of the lady attendees of an orchid show? Now that would be an investigation. But probably not one that journalists would be clamoring to do. Asking young hot things about their porn habits is a lot more fun than asking ladies who are contemporaries of your mother.

--Audacia Ray

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Tags: aslyum, porn convention, porn for women, porn star, women, women and porn

The Glorious Technology of Child Porn

Posted at 1:13 PM May 06, 2008

Although child porn and the children who are exploited and abused to make it is a disturbing thought for pretty much any thinking person (whatever their feelings are about consensual adult porn), it's a topic that very few writers and researchers will touch. This is largely due to the taboo and disturbing nature of the subject, but also has a hell of a lot ot do with the barriers to doing research. It's pretty difficult to stay within the law and/or not be traumatized by the subject if you're giving it some deep thought.

However, award-winning journalist Debbie Nathan is not afraid. For a number of years, she's done in-depth coverage of the “ritual sex abuse” panics of the 1980s and the residual fall out around this subject. It's an intense subject, one that she admits to being a bit obsessed by. In a recent post on her blog, Nathan writes about attending a conference about forensics, in which the developments in computer generated imagery (CGI) and the relationship to the production of child porn were explored at length.

While it is illegal to make or look at pornography using real live underage people, it is not illegal to produce and own CGI pornography with figures that appear to be underaged. Five or ten years ago this wasn't a huge issue - it was easy to tell real photos and digital compositions apart. But that's no longer the case. And as Nathan writes, child pornographers are now beginning to make real pictures look digital so they can skate by under the radar.

It's a really creepy fusion of exploitative crime and new technologies, and chances are high that some really weird combination of technophobia, attempts to punish pedophiles, and desire to protect children will meld to forge a new law. Just what that will be remains to be seen.

--Audacia Ray

[Image is a still from the CGI feature Polar Express]

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